3 Main Reasons People Quit Being Vegan – Tim Shieff Explained

Tim Shieff has just stopped being vegan. Or did he? Nobody really knows. Nonetheless a lot of vegans seem to go back to eating meat recently.

Why is it like this?

Is veganism truly that destructive diet that makes you age faster, lose your hair and eat your children? Obviously the last point is an exaggeration.
Here are the three main reasons why vegans start eating meat again. Basically everything new has a so called adoption cycle. This is usually used in the tech industry, but can also be used for veganism.

Five phases that every product or innovation goes through before it becomes mainstream.

The people using the product, depending on the stage, are called innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.
I think right now veganism is in the early adopters stage. It’s not widespread enough but a decent amount of people, in a single digit percentile, are using it.
Nonetheless I see this trend going forward as even Nestle, the biggest food company, is looking to increasingly go into that market. This adoption cycle is crucial to understand, because early adopters have different characteristics than the late majority.

1. Vegans Are Early Adopters

Usually at the point of the early adopters, which brings me to the number one, expectations are really high.Veganism cures cancer, clears acne, helps you run ultramarathons and lets you sleep only 4 hours.

While I’ve seen a benefit of going vegan, these claims are an overstatement of hypermotivated people, so called the early adopters.

And if people start the diet with such high expectations, who can blame them if they feel discouraged and stop after one year.

So set the right expectations.

2. Vegans Can Put Things To The Extreme (And Rightfully So!)

Early adopters are also more likely to put stuff to the extreme.

Fruitarian diet, raw, inner chi restoring pseudo diets. Steve Jobs was a part of that category, he disregarded the advice of his doctor and tried to cure his cancer with extreme diets.

Until it was too late. Inform yourself before you go down the vegan path. Medicine is more important than nutrition, especially when it comes to life-threating illnesses.

We also should understand that nature is not always good and that our current lifestyle with the artifical light and cubicle works is far away from natural.

So we should take supplements if we need to.

Overall we need to have a science-loving mindset, read scientific studies or follow Michael Greger from nutritionfacts.org which explains those studies to you.

3. Vegans Suffer From Peer Pressure

Peer pressure

I think if it wasn’t for Michael Greger I probably wouldn’t be vegan anymore.

Simply because the peer pressure is so freaking high. I got some problem with acne on my back and just recently got medicine to treat that. The first thing my friends ask is: But are you sure the acne isn’t there because you’re vegan?

And every freaking time I get the slightest cold, it gets blamed on my nutrition. That’s just how it is. What people don’t understand usually fascinates them. Most people aren’t aware what they’ve signed up for if they do something different.

Either be average and liked or be extraordinary and get hated on.

Conclusion: 3 Main Reasons People Quit Being Vegan – Tim Shieff Explained

I can not blame Tim Shieff for not wanting to go down the vegan path anymore. Shit, everyone is human and makes mistakes.

Publicly insulting Tim isn’t going to put this compassionate cause of veganism into a great light.

But I can see, that he’s part of the second main reason why he has stopped being vegan, he puts stuff to the extreme and disregards medicine and supplements altogether.

Which are next to peer pressure and high expectations, the 3 main reasons why people quit veganism.